Photo: Rachel Simons
In the final weeks of autumn, before the chill of winter set in, I would sit on a set of stairs at our drop-in center and soak in the sun’s last warmth. These stairs led to an old wooden door whose sole purpose was to serve as a place to rest my back. And so, with my back against this old door and the sun on my face, I was in the perfect position to listen. What I heard was a tiny scratching noise coming from the door. “Probably bugs,” I thought. “Termites.”
And I wondered how termites do what they do, the instinctual habit of finding and eating wood. Just as it is almost an instinctual habit for me to find this warm step and enjoy the sun. I am only obeying the drive in me to be warm. They, the termites, are simply obeying the drive in them to eat.
I know that obedience is more than instinctual. It is usually a choice we make. For me, obedience has often been about choosing to do something I didn’t necessarily want to do, because I had to do it. Sometimes that obedience became instinctual, habitual, such as reading my Bible and praying. More often than not, though, obedience has been about forcing myself to do things that I wouldn’t otherwise want to do. Like a toddler who is told not to touch a fragile vase, I must choose to listen and obey.
In Romanian, the words for “listen” and “obey” are the same: a asculta. I love this correlation because of what the word “listen” implies. Hearing and listening are not the same thing. If I am listening, then I am actively being present. I’m not simply hearing what is being said to or asked of me, but I am bringing all that I am to another and saying, “I am here, present with you. I am listening.” Intimacy is required.
Such presence, such obedience, is often difficult because it beckons us to a deeper level of knowing ourselves and others. It is coming out of ourselves to listen, to be present when it might be easier to hide behind spiritual disciplines that look like obedience but are nothing more than things we do to appear to be obedient. This is not unlike how the Pharisees lived. We are doing what Jesus said we should do (making disciples, going into the world, selling all we have), but we aren’t intimate with Him or with others. And we aren’t being as He was, listening to the still small voice that calls us to go beyond the obvious.
I think of Jesus, who was so intimate with His Father that His obedience became the way He was. As a result, He saw and heard what others did not: A dead girl was merely asleep. A woman caught in adultery was not any guiltier than those who accused her. Playing children were like a Kingdom. Such intimacy led Him to a cross, and His obedience also led to resurrection.
And so, obedience is not only about intimacy and being; it is about hope, the hope of resurrection. In the book Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver, a young woman has moved to Nicaragua to help farmers with their crops. The character talks about her own obedience, an intimacy that enables her not only to do and be, but also to hope. She says, “Here’s what I’ve decided: the very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the wall on both sides.”(1)
I believe Jesus’ obedience was like living inside hope. He didn’t admire it from a distance, but lived right “under its roof.” He lived in such a way, He was in such a way that ensured a response to intimacy that looked like loving His neighbor, raising the dead and feeding 5,000. His obedience ensured safe places and more than enough food to go around.
And so the demand of intimacy is obedience, and, more often than not, such intimacy involves giving something of ourselves. True intimacy, true presence, requires sacrifice. For Jesus, that sacrifice was a garden, a betrayal, a cross. Still, He was living in the hope of obedience, “running down its hallway and touching both sides,” knowing that the result of such intimacy, of such obedience would be resurrection and, finally, a new Kingdom where those who mourn are comforted and those who hunger and thirst are filled. I believe there is a way I can be in this world that can ensure a meal for all, that incurs “elementary kindness.” Call it “obedience,” call it “intimacy,” call it “living inside hope.” This is the call, the celebration of obedience: not doing, but being — being intimate.
ENDNOTES
1 Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 299.
April didn’t drink coffee until she moved to Romania where language learning necessitated a stronger caffeinated beverage than her beloved English Breakfast (taken with sugar and cream).